Unpaid salaries: Over 1,000 Indian teachers threaten to commit mass suicide on July 26

Over a thousand Indian teachers have threatened to commit mass suicide on July 26 to protest unpaid salaries.

The agitating teachers have claimed that in the last 12 years, the current dispensation in the northeastern state of Assam has arbitrarily stopped paying more than 12,000 teachers in state-run schools.

They have claimed that 3,000 such teachers have retired, while 91 have committed suicide.

As many as 1,514 teachers in India’s northeastern state of Assam say they have been deprived of their salaries for years due to an administrative flaw.

They have submitted innumerable pleas to the state as well the central administration, but their issue is yet to be solved.

The teachers, along with their families, have now threatened to commit mass suicide on July 26.

“The primary school teachers were given the appointment letters by the state government with a proper financial sanction. However, in 2006, they were declared to be appointed illegally,” Basanta Neog, secretary of the All Assam Salary Deprived Assistant Teachers Association, told the media on Monday.

Around 12,000 teachers, who had been working for 20-24 years, were suspended arbitrarily in 2006. Neog said that some of the teachers were given appointments by the then Asom Gana Parishad-led government between the years 1996 and 2001.

“Teachers were receiving their salaries regularly till 1996. It was stopped for a while but government again resumed our salary from 2001.

But, the Assam government in 2006 stalled our salaries following the declaration of illegal appointment,” Ramen Saikia, another representative of the association, said.

Despite the declaration that their appointment was illegal, these 12,000 teachers have been teaching classes regularly.